It
had been maybe four months since I had moved to Tulsa from Sherman,
Texas. I had no family here. No real friends either. Just a handful
of coworkers and buddies I'd hang out with on occasion. I was home
and logged into my MySpace account. I had a private message from
somebody named Kharlita. Probably spam or a scam or something. I
didn't know. I opened it anyway and the contents of the message was
something like, "Jeremy! I knew you'd give in and get a MySpace
account!" Sure sounds like phishing come to think of it. I took
the bait and actually replied back, "Um, who are you? Do you
have the right Jeremy?" When she responded she apologized and
said that she thought I was a different Jeremy. One she worked with.
See, neither of us used an actual picture as our avatar. I replied,
she replied. Playful banter. Eventually we friended each other. She made my top five.
Her
avatar was some cartoon of a Latina woman flexing her muscles. I
don't remember what mine was. I clicked on her photo album and saw
that she was cute. That's a plus. She had a nice sense of humor.
That's another check in the plus column. One time she made a post in
her feed commenting about being stunned to see a young lady wearing a
shirt that read, “There's no pussy like pregnant pussy.” I took
this as an opportunity to photoshop her avatar. I took the woman from her avatar and
made her look pregnant and placed that in a shirt with the caption,
“There's no pussy like pregnant pussy.” Kharlita deleted the
picture and messaged me. “I love the pic! It's hilarious, but I
can't have relatives see that picture. They may think the wrong
thing.” I apologized and thought I was in trouble with her. I'm
such an idiot!
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| Picture of a printout. I no longer have the jpg image. Notice how the belly is just a copy of her booty. 2006 |
Over
the next month we chatted some more. I mentioned that I was going to
go see Opeth in concert. They are a band I really like. She thought
I was inviting her and said, “I'd love to go see 'The' Opeth!”
“The”
Opeth? Really? I doubted she knew who they were. Not exactly her
wheelhouse. She's more Peter Gabriel or Deathcab for Cutie.
Definitely not Norwegian Death Metal. I told her that they aren’t
coming to Tulsa, the show was actually 250 miles away in Dallas, but
I'd keep her in mind if they ever came to the Tulsa metro. Oddly
enough, I was meeting up with a guy I never met at the show. Somebody
from a metal message board. He was cool and we went to some bar in
Deep Ellum after the show. One of those classy joints with bras
hanging from the ceiling.
We
kept messaging each other for about seven months. Seven
months! Early June the NEXT year we messaged each other about a
movie we were excited to see. It was from the guy that made Napoleon
Dynamite. It was about a Mexican monk that moonlighted as a wrestler.
Looked hilarious. Movie was called Nacho Libre.
She messaged me inviting me to see the movie with her. Wait, what? Flirting with a stranger online for months is one thing, but to actually meet her? What if she's an ax murdering rapist? What if she's not, but she still has poor judgment as to meet me. I could have been an ax murdering rapist! I decided, reluctantly, that it would be OK. We would be in public after all. Let's see this movie Friday night.
She messaged me inviting me to see the movie with her. Wait, what? Flirting with a stranger online for months is one thing, but to actually meet her? What if she's an ax murdering rapist? What if she's not, but she still has poor judgment as to meet me. I could have been an ax murdering rapist! I decided, reluctantly, that it would be OK. We would be in public after all. Let's see this movie Friday night.
I
still didn’t have a cell phone. We would have to set a time and
meet the old fashioned way.
We
were meeting at the theater at Promenade Mall. There was a problem
though. I got there early and the movie wasn't playing at that
theater. I ran to my car and checked the AMC Theater just down the
road. They had the movie, we just got the theaters mixed up. Now I
had to rush back to Promenade Mall, sure would be nice to have a cell
phone. I got back and was still early.
I
waited outside the mall by the theater. There she was. This short,
long curly haired Latina Goddess was coming my way. Within speaking
distance she said, “Jeremy, right?” I said, “Yes, Kharlita?”
and held out my hand for a lame-ass handshake. She bypassed that and
came in for a hug. “My name is Kharla, actually.” I explained
that we needed to hop in our cars and head to the AMC fast. And we
were off.
We
met up again a few minutes later in the parking lot. She let me buy
her tickets but I had to let her buy popcorn and a drink. Somewhere
in our introductions I referred to her as a perfume whore. She had a
part time job selling fragrances at Dillard's. Regardless, this
probably wasn't “A" material for meeting for the first time. But I
guess she understood my humor and wasn't put of by this.
We
watched the movie and it was fantastic. Though not as big a hit as
Napoleon Dynamite, I believe Nacho Libre to be the superior film.
After the movie we talked about how hilarious it was and we were glad
that neither one of us was an ax murdering rapist—that we knew of.
She said she wanted to see Superman Returns when it comes out in a
few weeks. She asked if I wanted to see it. I'm an idiot and told
her, “No thanks, that movie doesn't look interesting to me, I'll
pass.” Kharla said it was too bad, and she hopes we see each other
again. I agreed to that and we said our “Goodnights.” We would
chat on MySpace later on.
As
soon as I got in the car, instead of being satisfied with a good time
I was pissed. Why did I turn her down? I would fix that mistake.
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| Early on in Kharla and mine's relationship. 2006 |
If I had to pick a single song to be the soundtrack of this post, it would be...
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